


Old Faern Stuff

by Athanasa



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Hypothermia, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athanasa/pseuds/Athanasa
Summary: A dumping ground for various writings for my old WoW character, Faern. Frankly, I don't even remember half the characters in this.





	1. Sea Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original from June 2009.

“Take this ruby, Adept. It will alert you to attacks on Horde settlements. Oh, and your shift is over.” The Blood Knight gave Faern an odd look out of the corner of his eye, a look mixed somewhere with disgust, wary respect and pity. Someone that young should not have the rank she did. Someone that young should have fallen apart and died long ago (actually, her medical record proved she had done that multiple times). Someone that bloody young should not be prancing around getting hacked at by axes (or wield a mace that looked like a sea mine on a stick).

The adept took the stone without question, saluted and left the room. The Blood Knight remained, still peering at Faern.

Faern peered back. There wasn’t really much else she could do. She couldn’t walk, talk or even move her arms at the moment. She had absolutely no way of communicating, and was as such very frustrated. And completely unable to do a single thing about it. Both arms were in plaster, and the muscles of her legs had not yet recovered from trying to take on an axe. It didn’t help that she was watched almost around the clock to stop her being stubborn and running off to be heroic (or limping, most likely).

Faern could have sworn that the Knight smirked as he walked towards her, plate armour clinking against the chain mail joints for flexibility, shining a perfect blood red and black in the light. Hmph, silver was better in Faern’s opinion. It looked less blatantly violent. She tilted her head to watch as he placed the gem on the table beside her bed, scowling. Out of reach. The bastard. The Knight noticed her sulking face and patted her patronisingly on the head; Faern opened her mouth to tell him to do something unpleasant with a cactus, but no sound came out. Her throat was still damaged from a previous evening, and might never fully recover.

“Aww, don’t you worry lass. You’ll be up and fighting some day.”

Faern chewed the inside of her cheek with frustration and rage; nothing else much she could do, then yelped silently as she accidentally bit too hard and broke the skin. Gah! There was nothing else she could do to vent anger, really. She detested spitting at people; some days it felt like she was walking through a autumn storm she got spat at that much.

The next Adept walked in and stood by the door, saluting with a clunk. The Knight turned away from Faern, returned the salute and sauntered out, leaving her to a few more hours of boredom, pain and frustration.

Damn Tyroll. Damn world.


	2. Paperwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally from June 2009.
> 
> In which Faern does paperwork.

Paperwork was one of the necessary evils of her job; an officer for Tarnished. In fact, why the hell was she an officer anyway? She had almost no leadership qualities, hid behind others and disliked responsibility. Not only was there no sense in her being offered the job, why did she even accept it?

Because it offered her protection, it kept her safe, although she suspected that she was getting more paperwork than the other officers. Inventories, legal documents. Half of it she didn’t even understand and had to have explained to her! But she was learning, or at least she thought she was. Legal jargon, how to spot irregularities. Someone had been running off with those tarnished necklaces again. The bank needed more matching clothing for the tabard, and although it looked good, Faern couldn’t see the point in it. It was so grey, so lifeless. Then again, maybe that was the point? To go unnoticed? Or maybe because life was shades of grey, not good and evil.

Sighing, she went back to the paper to the side, written in her neatest handwriting (which she had surprised even herself with). It was a forged identity for her friend and (debatably) lover Geis. She smiled slightly, remembering a comment the night before; “I owe you so much.” Or something like that. Her answer had been that she was happy to see him happy, and that was all that mattered. He was currently living under the alias of Condor, his codename within the Flying Daggers – hers was Magpie. However, he needed a real forged name. A messy stack on the desk held copies of records of missing people; mainly scouts, who tended to go missing regularly. Hopefully she could assign one of these identities to Geis, hopefully ensuring a safe identity and the reputation that went with it.

The choice was narrowed down to around five now, light haired blood elves all of them, ranging in age appearance from nineteen to their forties. She would need to ask him which identity he wanted to take of the five.

Faern massaged her wrist with her left hand, grimacing slightly. She wasn’t used to writing so much in one sitting, her wrist muscles used to holding daggers or swords. Wearily, she turned to look at the pile of papers still to be signed, read, checked over and filed. She groaned, and flopped forwards, yelping when her forehead hit the desk harder than intended and sighing, closing her eyes and preparing for a power nap. Plenty of other similar papers to make for other ex-Essence members, if they wanted to try to redeem themselves.

 

Outside a secretary, or more guard knowing Faern’s history, smiled to himself and turned a page of his book. It was keeping Faern occupied and out of the line of fire, away from the Alliance, and getting some of the damn paperwork finished.


	3. Give Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this one belongs before Enhancements.
> 
> Also from June 2009.

“How’s the patient?”

“She isn’t fighting any more.”

“What do you mean?”

“She just… isn’t fighting.”

Vilyara sighed and brushed her storm-blue hair behind a curving horn, absent mindedly smoothing her skirt over her goat-legs. There were dark shadows under her eyes, turning the already blue skin a darker and greyer shade, almost matching her hair. With the robotic movements of long repetitive practice, she re-dampened the cloth from the patient’s head and replaced it. The girl did not stir – her skin was still too hot to the touch, and the symptoms everything and nothing. Whatever that green gloop had been, it was nasty.

She looked despairingly up at Sha’nir, who simply shrugged and patted Vilyara’s shoulder with an ivory hand. “We cannot save them all.”

Her skin burned. Her mind burned. She was on a boat, tossed around the sea, falling through the starless night sky. She didn’t know where she was any more. Her eyes were sewn shut. Oh god! No! Not again, not them, please not them… not again…

Vilyara turned quickly, summoning healing magic in glowing golden globes around her fingertips at the odd croaking sound. The girl twitched weakly, still making noises like she was being asphyxiated. The Draenei released the healing magic into the blood elf’s tormented form, and the girl stilled. Slowly, she opened her eye. It took so much effort, and it was so bright, so painfully bright… But now her eye was open, it was too much bother to close it again. Not worth the battle. Not worth the effort. She just wanted to sleep again. Peaceful sleep, where the time passed with no way of counting, where she could wait safely until the end. Peace…

“Faern?” The voice took time to reach her battered half-ears, the accent clipped and decidedly Draenic. But this did not register in her fevered mind yet, it was just something that went in one ear and out the other.

“Faern, are you avake?”

Slowly, like a slug on sedatives, her mind caught up with it’s environment. So… she was no longer in Undercity. Maybe she was in… what was the name? Shatterath? Shazzeroth? Something like that.

“You muszt keep fighting…”

But she was no longer awake, going back into fevered dreams and peaceful unconsciousness. Reality could wait, it didn’t need or want her anyway. Not at the moment.


	4. Enhancements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written 2009.
> 
> In which Faern comes to the realisation that she can't keep healing this crap... and instead needs to go down the augmentation route.

“You cannot do zis any more.”

Faern turned her head and looked up at the Draenei, one allied with The Sha’tar in Shattrath city. Currently she was in the infirmary, and had been for the past day or so. She had guessed something was wrong, she was usually healed and ready to leave within five hours, not over twenty four (apart from that time she had ran out of blood).

The Draenei was female, and looked near ageless like the rest of her species, flawless alabaster skin with a blue sheen to it, glowing silver eyes, delicately curving horns tapering out behind her head and stormy blue-grey hair tied up behind her head, held back by her horns and pointed ears. A few of the facial… thingies were missing, a small scar evident on the upper arm of the Draenei’s left arm, slightly grey against the pale skin. Her name was Vilyara, and the two knew each other rather well, in a patient-doctor sort of relationship. Faern ended up in the infirmary with depressing regularity.

“Your body cannot take zis much longer, Miss Flameshine.” The Draenei looked down at Faern with concern. Faern herself was lying on her front on one of the hard beds for those who weren’t actively dying and in a stable condition. Vilyara ran her fingers down some of the ribs on Faern’s back. She yelped, the ribs still aching. The healing had usually solved that by now.

The Draenei frowned sadly; the ribs were slightly deformed under her fingers from the many beatings they had received, where they had been re-joined they felt rough under the scarred skin of the young elf, brittle. She withdrew her hands and entwined her fingers with each other, holding them in front of her in a casual way, looking down at the Blood Elf, so young but not likely to live to their equivalent of adulthood, or at least not full adulthood. Still an adolescent, a young one at that. Such a shame what war caused.

Faern shrugged casually, hiding a wince as it hurt her bruised ribs, “I know, I know Villy. But what else am I supposed to do, eh?” She smiled, although her remaining green eye was worried. Vilyara rolled her pupil-less pearl eyes at the use of the name ‘Villy’.

“I mean it seriously, Faern. Your body cannot take eet much longer. You know our healing ees not as affective as eet used to be.” Vilyara’s tone was serious, a sad indulgent smile on her face, trying to calm Faern. Faern nodded, and then dropped her head back onto her folded hands in front of her, sighing, although not sighing deeply; that hurt. Vilyara continued; the girl needed to know. “Each time vee heal eet, it retains scars. Like on your skin. But scars on ze bone are more… obvious. And like skin scars do not stretch, scars on your bones are more brittle. You have surely noticed?” Again, Faern nodded.

“I can’t help it, Vilyara. I just… I just… Oh Nether, I don’t bloody well know.”

Faern’s reaction caused another sad smile to creep onto the pearly face of the Draenei, who sat down beside her on the bed and gently patted her shoulder, sighing and looking at Faern as one would look at a child; she felt so responsible for this little one.

“You feel you have to fight, yes? I vas the same. Sometimes vee must stop fighting and look at ze world. Zhere are others zhat vill fight. Eet ees not all up to you.”

Faern sighed again, deeply and ignoring the pain of her ribs. Damn it, she really did need to take at least some of that advice. She couldn’t be falling apart now, not yet… she wasn’t even officially an adult! No, she wasn’t falling apart. It was just a warning from a friend; friends worried too much. Yes, that was it. And it was just the after-healing ache.

“But if everyone thought like that, nothing would get done! I have to keep fighting, or who else will?”

Vilyara turned her head to look out the ‘window’ – or more hole in the side of the infirmary – at a passing white gryphon hatchling at play with a wyvern kit. A mock battle, all hisses and screeches, but no actual damage done intentionally.

“Ve have healed you as much as ve can.”

Faern blinked and opened her mouth; “But I—” don’t feel healed. What if what Vilyara had said was true? If her body couldn’t be healed so well any more… Well, where your body failed you, you brought technology into play. The Apothecarium in Undercity knew about bodies, some of their number were Ex-High Elves, their leader – Lady Sylvanas Windrunner – was a ranger of Quel’Thalas in life. They would know about bodies, specifically preserving them. Surely this could be adapted to a living body.

 

She pushed herself up and pulled on her leather jacket, pausing while buttoning it up to gaze at the scars on her torso and stomach. Oh, hell, what if it was doing that to her internal organs too? She dismissed the notion and finished buttoning it, standing and walking stiffly to the edge, then whistling for her wyvern; Scar. Aye, Undercity was worth a visit.


	5. Dodging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, from mid 2009.

Her breath echoed in her ears, her feet pounded on the ground. The target was down, mission accomplished. Now all that remained was to get out, alive. Damn it! She should check the backgrounds of hits in future. This one seemed to have been well loved, that or the locals and passers by in Elwynn were bored and needed something to shoot at.

She swallowed a loud yelp as a crossbow bolt thudded into a tree beside her, three inches of the lightweight metal shaft sticking into the wood, some sort of liquid residue around where it had hit the tree. Poison, no doubt. She shuddered, thinking of how easily it had got through the gnarled bark and what it would have done if that had been her.

Her mutilated ears twitched towards any sound, her legs straining to gain ground, bounding off fallen logs, staying bent low and zigzagging behind trees. A bullet zipped past, ripping through her cloak on the way to explode like a small grenade on the ground ahead. This time she did scream – a small strangled noise, before swerving to the right and putting on a burst of speed, reaching into her pocket to check her hearthstone. Judging by the feel of its magic, it was a good half an hour before it would be good to use again. A frustrated growl escaped her lips. At least two after her, only luck had kept her from both the bullet and the bolt, and goodness knew how many others without the marksmanship needed to shoot a fleeing target.

 

A twig snagged on her hood, pulling it back away from her face, identifying her to any who knew her; Faern Flameshine. A Horde ‘ambassador’, or so they believed. Hell, she’d never asked to be known as an ambassador! Her actions weren’t even supported by the Horde, and she wasn’t even sure it was widely known within the Horde. Oh, hell, she needed to sort that ou—

Something cold thudded into the back of her cloak, slicing through the leather at the back of her armor and into the flesh of her back near her shoulder blade, pain flaring up and down her spine although the wound itself was numb from cold. An ice lance, already beginning to melt, a large icicle spear in her back. She screamed, more from shock of the cold and pain more than anything, and threw herself behind a tree, staring at the bark to see if there was a way up… No. No way up. Damn!

She readied herself to move again, then the very tree struck against her, roots writhing up from the ground to grab around her ankles and slowly moving up her legs, holding her fast, the roots sprouting thorns which cut into her skin and armor, almost shredding her lightweight leather trousers – her boots held, designed to cope with shredding and so forth. She was running out of energy, but yanked the daggers from her belt, slashing and stabbing at the roots on her legs. Chips of wood fell away, but they kept coming, binding tighter, thorns cutting more. With a desperate cry, she grabbed a grenade from her belt and removed the pin with her teeth, dropping it amid the vines and thorns.

Four seconds.

Three.

Two.

One.

She concentrated hard, already drained from running too far too fast, calling up a very short term shield around herself, faint flickering golden light shielding her skin, but not her armor. The leather of her trousers burnt and blackened. Damn, beyond repair now. Her boots blackened too, turning brittle, her chest armor – reasonably fire retardant, a ‘must have’ for engineers – and her mask darkened slightly but held firm, as did her gloves and shoulder pads. The explosion of the grenade blinded her temporarily, burning the vines and thorns to dust. She lurched forwards, throwing herself against the now brittle and burnt bonds, barely a second left on her holy shield, relief surging through her as she stumbled free, shield flickering out of existence and sprinting ahead… right into an incoming pyroblast from a Draenei mage. Her eyes went wide, the light of the fire showing her features clearly through the soot left by the grenade; no right eye, right side of her face a smooth scar, both ears cut off half way along the length, looking almost like a human veteran if it wasn’t for the evident youth of her features, the angular bone structure and of course the green glow of her remaining eye.

The giant flaming bolder zoomed towards her, time seemed to slow. Well… bugger, that’s going to hurt if it hits me. Will they even find the pieces? Reflexively, she called up her shadow to cloak herself, the darkness swirling around her, embracing her, eagerly devouring the brightness and power of the pyroblast. She kept running forwards, not having bothered to slow when she saw the pyroblast; it wouldn’t have made a difference if it had hit her anyway, apart from maybe the placing of a smoking crater and her sooty remains.

Grabbing at her trousers, a patch of which practically turned to dust in her hands, she found her pack of flash powder and a store of irritating dirt. Flinging it into the eyes of the mage, who was already charging up another fireball, she threw the packet of flash powder at her feet. Catalysts in the small packet sparked, causing a small flash-bang, followed by large amounts of smoke. Ready for the flash and the bang, Faern was unaffected, using the distraction to disappear into the shadows, slinking south towards the river that marked the border with Duskwood, joining with the river that bordered Elwynn and Westfall.

There! An oak, low hanging branches over the river. Hope flooded Faern’s exhausted mind, she left the safety of the shadows and sprinted towards it, crabbing onto the branches and pulling herself up into the relative haven of the canopy. Safe, for now. She carefully retrieved her dimensional ripper from a flameproof pack under her cloak around her waist, connecting the wires to herself before pressing the ‘Go’ button, which incidentally was the big red button. Ten seconds later, a large explosion could be heard even in Stormwind, the top of the tree blackened and dead.

 

Faern grimaced, thrown head first out of the teleporter in Area 52, Netherstorm. She pushed herself up, feeling as if there was something slightly wrong with her legs. Grimacing, she looked down… Ah, Draenei again. The ripper sometimes did that to you… it would be at least an hour until she got her normal form back. Meanwhile, she needed armor repairs and healing.


	6. Freezing - Frozen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Faern dies of hypothermia.

Why was she here? She had been told to… do something, by someone. She could not remember it now. It was too cold to think any further than the present, and of finding warmth. She could barely see more than ten feet in front of her, as the blizzard swirled around her, whistling through the joints in her armour, tearing at her cloak, whipping her hair from under her helmet and stinging her eyes.

The cold was everywhere, all around her; stinging, biting, numbing, freezing. She could barely feel her nose, and the ice on her eyelashes fell in sparkling showers each time she blinked. Her lips were split and sore, but too cold to bleed. Each breath stung the inside of her throat and her nose, giving her a headache.

Where was north? Where had she come from, which direction? Where was the outpost? It was… behind her, probably. Somewhere back there. But she could have been walking in circles without realising, subconsciously turning to protect herself from the chill wind and the blasting snow, or worse, with the mountains surrounding Dragonblight, she could be walking in circles within an eddy of wind.

Stiffly she turned on the spot, her plate armour clanking. Under it, the leather of her under-armour that protected her from rubbing by the plate creaked and chafed at her skin, stiffened by the cold and only supple in certain places because she kept moving. It scraped against the scars on her torso, but she could not feel that more than a slight tickle. While the leather blocked the wind, it did nothing against the nagging cold that suffused the air, or the frigid melt from snow blown inside the joints in her armour.

Behind her were her own footsteps. Earlier, they had been easily definable. Now, each footstep dragged into the next as she ran out of energy to lift her feet further. Or maybe the snow was deeper. Yes, she was getting nowhere by continuing onwards. She would have to turn back.

She raised her hands in front of her and tried to mutter a quick prayer for healing and revitalisation, moving her fingers through the correct passes - tried to. Her numbed fingers refused to answer to her commands, and the cold as she opened her mouth to speak made her gasp and cough.

Her armour was holding her back, she decided. Its weight was weighing her down, focussing the wind into uncomfortable areas, exhausting her. She stopped, fumbling with the various buckles that held her armour secured. Again, her frozen fingers could not manage the subtle movements. Hissing, she bent – ouch, chafing leather – to remove her dagger from its boot-sheath. Grimacing, she sliced through the leather straps on her plate, wriggling her arms to free it. She then followed with the armour on her legs. She took her boots off, and grimaced as water trickled out of them – remains of snow – and froze into a puddle on the ground. She tore off her cloak, and tied it roughly around her face to keep the wind at bay, then trudged on.

* * *

S-so c-cold, so terribly, horribly cold; how long had she been walking? Was she even still walking?

She peered blearily down at her legs to check that they were still there – she could not feel them. And yes, they were walking, automatically trudging forwards through the knee-deep snow. She was sure that she had seen that mound before. That little bit of black armour with red trim poking out of the snowdrift. How odd. What was armour doing out here in the snow?

Curiosity cut through her frozen haze, so Faern shuffled towards the strange lump in the snow, blinking sleepily at the mound as she drew closer to it. It looked familiar. Maybe she had known someone who had worn that sort of armour before. Why was it here? What sort of a silly person took off their armour in the middle of nowhere?

Faern reached the armour, and flopped down to sit on the snow. It felt good to sit; comforting. In fact, she felt a little warm. She had stopped shivering. Maybe the blizzard was clearing and the day warming up.

“Thush guhd,” she muttered to herself, her voice slurred almost beyond recognition, but she did not notice. Carefully, she reached out to brush some snow off from the armour. “Thash odd,” she muttered. Her hand had not made contact with the metal. Or maybe it had? She could not feel it. But it certainly had not cleared away a layer of snow on the metal. “Heheh, shilleh, yuuh ehrmed wrung.”

Faern shrugged her shoulders. She did not feel that either, and to be honest, she did not care whether she had or not. Well, if she wanted to see what this armour was, she would have to try again, would she not? Yes, she would. She giggled to herself slightly and reached out again, her arm clumsy. Swinging it vaguely, she managed to brush a fair bit of snow off, revealing the armour to be a black breastplate with red edging. Pinned through a strap on the front was a Blood Knight insignia.

How odd. What sort of a Blood Knight would take their armour off, and not take their insignia? What a silly person had left these!


End file.
